Just to let you know there is no official organised meeting for the 29th. The Uni Arms is shut (like the rest of the Uni) over the Christmas week. Feel free to organise games elsewhere...Gaming picks up again on Tuesday 5th January 2016

I'm catching it on Boxing Day morning. Just watched the original trilogy, in preparation; have to say, bit disappointed they've messed around with the ending on ROTJ - they changed the force ghost of Anakin Skywalker. It's now Hayden Christiansen; presumably they're trying to create some continuity between episodes 4,5,6 and 1,2,3; maybe it was a financially motivated decision? ARGH. Should have left it as it was, IMO.

Jamie wrote:Could be tempted with a little Eclipse or even Archipelago...

Would be up for learning either archipelago or exodus. Off work too

Archipelago is awesome Sam. Really really AWESOME. It's like advanced Settlers of Catan meets Eclipse (but not so much of the hot cannon fire plasma missile death fest). No, but really, it's a great game. Instructions are a bit unclear in places; but I've totally got my head around it now, and I'd be good to teach it...

The Hayden Christiansen force ghost was the most obvious and necessary change to the originals after the prequels were made. Having followed Anakin's whole life you never once see him looking like Sebastian Shaw. Besides, I kind of don't mind Hayden Christiansen's portrayal of a young, disturbed and driven Vader. Well, it's not the worst thing in the prequels!

I'm free this Tuesday if anyone is interested in playing games. I can't host but I can bring flapjacks.

PS: The worst change in any of the Star Wars special editions was the song in Jabba's palace. This is a scene I even remember from VHS as having a particular atmosphere, as being seedy. To which they add some budget Dreamworks song and dance bollocks. Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2obEPFGrMs

Sam wrote:PS: The worst change in any of the Star Wars special editions was the song in Jabba's palace. This is a scene I even remember from VHS as having a particular atmosphere, as being seedy. To which they add some budget Dreamworks song and dance bollocks. Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2obEPFGrMs

I probably didn't know the original film well enough to notice without having already been told that Han Didn't Shoot First in the SE, but the other thing I really couldn't stand was all the added CGI rubbish that littered some scenes in the special editions. It's hilariously terrible. It reminds me of a kid filling a PowerPoint school project with animated clipart of dancing bananas and so on.

Episodes III and VI make a good double feature. The two average films in the series make each other better: there is some cool synergy between them. Luke's behaviour at the beginning of VI mirror Anakin's turn to the dark side. You also see the full scope of the long-term conflict that takes a generation to resolve, the rise and fall of the Empire, which is part of what I like about Star Wars. But most of all you can see Lucas's vision for Vader and it actually has some impact. In IV and V Vader is pretty cold and evil and in VI you start to see the cracks and humanity (just the fact that he engages with Luke somewhat, "there's no hope for me" etc.). Watching III immediately before helps recall that he was once more man than machine, and you see more of that character, remembering that he was previously so ambitious and wild and now somewhat tragically is so enslaved to Palpatine that he will sell his own son to him. It's even more of a triumph when he finally breaks free and sticks it to that weird wrinkly bastard. With all that in mind I can't hate Hayden Christiansen too much, because though we could have had a better Vader story in the prequels the one we got wasn't as bad as all that, and certainly didn't ruin Vader. It changed him in an interesting way.

Some other synergy I like: his line in V tempting Luke to join him to rule the galaxy without the Emperor resonates with his naive claims that he would surpass Palatine in III (I think he says it to Padme, or maybe Obi-Wan). A little of his youthful aspirations are showing through his opaque obligation to the Empire, which pays off in his plot in VI.

Then again, though I did watch the original films as as kid before I watched the prequels, I guess I don't remember them very well without the influence of I, II and III.